Green Lantern has had a long history in television animation, appearing in over a dozen cartoon series over the course of more than fifty years. The Filmation cartoons in the 1960’s, various incarnations of Superfriends in the 1970’s and 80’s, Justice League and JLU in the early 2000’s, and so many more, until finally getting a series of its own. Green Lantern The Animated Series had 26 episodes and began airing in early 2012, and quickly became a show that is, in my opinion, one of the best things you could give a new fan to show them what makes Green Lantern so great, as it distills so many of the franchise’s best qualities and ideas into something that’s both exciting and easy to understand. That show still means a lot to so many of us, and its sudden cancelation after a single season left a hole in the hearts of Green Lantern fandom that many still haven’t filled.
But what if I told you there was another Green Lantern cartoon show out there that you may not have seen, or maybe you’ve heard of it without realizing what it was? Gurren Lagann is a 27 episode anime series that aired in 2007 and embodies so much of what we love about Green Lantern. It’s a story about willpower, legacy, and the largest cosmic battle you’ve ever seen…and I mean that literally. When I watch Gurren Lagann, I’m reminded of something that made Green Lantern stand out to me, something that I never saw in any other super hero story. For the longest time, it seemed like you had to be special to be a hero. You needed to be born with certain genetics or suffer a tragedy…be the subject of a really specific accident, or just have advantages no average person could. There didn’t seem to be room for the regular person among the iconic pantheon, normal people were there to look up to and be saved by these super beings. And while I thought they were really cool, there was always that distance that kept me from really seeing myself in them.
…and then I found Green Lantern, a hero defined by the fact that he was just some nobody off the street. Kyle Rayner was a regular person who happened to be in the right place at the right time and was chosen at random to become the next Green Lantern purely because there was nobody else around to pick from. He was given a ring, a piece of advanced technology, powered by your own fighting spirit that transforms your desires to achieve your goal into raw power, in the form of a radiant green light, and sometimes a crackling green flame.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a hot shot test pilot, an architect, some guy who runs a dive bar, or an artist…there’s something in you that’s powerful, and the ring draws it out, so you can become a force to be reckoned with, stand shoulder to shoulder with titans, and shine a light so blindingly bright that the universe itself can’t possibly ignore you.
So imagine the smile on my face when I found Gurren Lagann, an anime that starts with Humanity at its lowest point. Living in caves so deep, it’d been generations since anyone had ever been outside…hell, the very existence of the sky was thought to be a myth. Until one day, an average kid with nothing special about him found something. A tiny drill, that responded to his willpower. A piece of otherworldly technology that took the fire within him and let it explode outward, a vibrant green, as he began his long struggle to blaze a trail so that Humanity could rise again. And he wasn’t alone.
Kamina is a lot like Hal Jordan. He jumps into every situation head first, and asks questions…well, never…just assuming things will work out. Because why wouldn’t they? He’d never allow himself to fail when someone’s counting on him. Kamina’s entire existence is defined by the idea that if the universe wants you to move, you stand your ground and force the entire universe to move out of your way instead. He might be the most stubborn fictional character ever created…and one of the most inspiring. It’s his unrelenting desire to push forward, his infectious optimism, his drive to succeed at any goal, that motivates those around him to rise up and achieve things far greater than anyone could have ever imagined was possible.
Like Simon, a Kyle Rayner type who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, to receive a powerful item that lets him change the course of Humanity’s future, and the very landscape of the universe. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he does it anyway, because nobody else can. He’s staggered by the legacy of those who came before him, and firmly believes its impossible for him to ever fill the shoes of those who did so much and meant so much…just like how Kyle always felt he lived in the shadow of Hal Jordan and the legacy of the Green Lantern Corps. So many great people, doing so many great things, how could some untrained rookie, some random kid with nothing special about him, possibly accomplish anything worthy of their memory? But then Kyle realized the same thing Simon did…the simple fact that those other people aren’t around anymore. They’re not coming to save the day anymore. And it’s time to step up and become the hero that everyone needs you to be, or watch as everyone around you falls. And this artist from New York…this nobody, who only got his ring because he chose that particular moment to step out of the bar to get some fresh air…became a light in the darkness, a beacon of hope.
Just like how Simon, the kid who used to be scared of everything, who never thought he’d amount to anything beyond just being real good at digging, found the inspiration and the drive to guide Human civilization as it reached towards the stars that’d been denied to them for so long.
Anime and American Comics are filled to the brim with characters who’re heroic and inspirational, but nothing quite like these two. Their approach to the power fantasy is to say that the average nobody is powerful already, we just need a good push to get us to bring it out. That’s what the ring and the drill do, they unlock what’s already there, what’s already true about us, so that the qualities that make us who we are can shine bright…and when that happens, there’s nothing beyond our reach.
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